Slightly Cracked
by Julia456
Summary: It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. TV based, and unrepentantly fluffy while we're at it.


Note: This is television-based because, hey, I love the books just as much as everyone else, but the books don't give me an excuse to stare at Paul Blackthorne for an hour. (Yowza!) Also I really like the non-PB parts of the show. :)

Anyway. Let's see... the summary quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson, and this is set after "Second City", so there be spoilers, yarrgh.

* * *

__

"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg  
even though he knows that you are slightly cracked."

- Bernard Meltzer

* * *

Harry doesn't think to ask until a couple of weeks later. At that point it's more out of boredom than curiosity: they're hours into a stakeout, sitting in a cold, cramped car, staring at an empty building and waiting for _some_thing, _any_thing, to go down.

He's mostly sure they've got nothing bigger to worry about than some teenagers toying with dark forces beyond their ken, etc. - which isn't to say there's no danger. Just that it'll probably be sloppy, to put it nicely, and half-assed, to put it bluntly.

So he's bored instead of worried. He's not a cop; he's not into stakeouts. Murphy looks bored too, but professionally. She looks like she could sit there and take very tiny sips of coffee all night. God, he hopes it doesn't take all night. She won't talk about her daughter and he can't talk about Bob and the case isn't _that_ interesting, and there's only so many other things to discuss.

Like a couple of weeks ago, when some things got... interesting.

"So, Murphy. When you were getting back into your captain's good graces," he starts, no preamble, trying to be casual, "how'd you explain about the - the photo?"

Not, of course, merely "the photo" but rather The Photo, and he _really_ hopes he won't have to go into more detail.

She slides a look at him, a knowing cop look, then refocuses on the deserted building across the street. "We knew we were being tailed, we suspected Harrick or Munzer for the bad guy, so we decided to see what would happen if... And it worked."

He mulls it over for a second, drumming his fingers against the base of the window. "Wow. That's pretty thin, Murph."

"Better than saying you needed a jolt for the ant vomit, Dresden," she says, voice dry. "Or whatever the hell that was."

He has to concede the truth of that.

She takes a sip of her coffee and asks, matter-of-fact, "Where _is_ the photo?"

He looks at her with a good facsimile of blankness. The photo's tucked away somewhere safe, someplace where, for example, Bob can't _"accidentally"_ find it and use it to endlessly needle Harry with snide and snarky comments.

He should trash it, or give it back to the cops. He doesn't know why he decided to keep it.

Okay, yes he does. Which does _not_ mean, though, that he wants to discuss it _ad nauseum_ with a ghost. It was a helluva Kodak moment and one that's probably not ever going to repeat itself, let alone get caught on film. Call him Mr. Sentimental; he wasn't looking to collect it, but he might as well keep it.

Okay, no he shouldn't - but he does a lot of stuff he shouldn't, so how is that new?

"Evidence has Harrick's camera," she says, obviously not buying it, "but Kirmani said that print ended up with you. So where is it?"

"Huh." He flashes a grin and tries for total innocence. "You know - I don't know."

She gives him another unfooled, amused glance and he continues to give her what he hopes is an innocent grin, and they both try to ignore the fact that a) he is a terrible liar tonight and b) the tension level inside the car has jumped about twenty degrees in the last two minutes.

"How's your father?" he asks. Not to change the subject, but yeah, they need to change the subject.

"He's good. He's doing good." She sounds like she's not quite sure how she feels about that, but has decided to go with "optimistic and upbeat" for propriety's sake.

"Happy to hear it," he says, because he is. He likes her dad. Rather, he likes him now that Mr. Murphy no longer wants to introduce him to the barrel of a thirty-eight. (And that was even _before_ Joe saw the full-color glossy of Harry planting one on his baby girl.)

"Yeah. He called the other day," she says, taking another teensy sip from her very large cup. "I think... He's really trying change some things. Fix them. You know."

He says, "Third time's the charm, right?" and gets a snort and a shake of her head.

Silence falls for a moment, the comfortable sort between friends, and they use it to watch nothing happen across the street. Perhaps the teenagers have moved on to other, scarier pastimes. For example, babysitting.

"Harry," Murphy says. "I'm not going to see it on the Internet, am I?"

And the topic, just like that, has reverted back to slightly tense and shaky ground despite all his efforts. But this question, at least, is one he can answer straight up: assuming he could ever find a computer that didn't go kablooey when he touched it - he still wouldn't know what to do with the damn thing. "Nope."

"Good," she says, and takes another sip. "Because I have a gun."

"Well, I have a hockey stick," he informs her.

She laughs, like an indulgent mother, or a world-weary cop, or maybe simply an excellent friend. "_Oh_. Okay. Good thing you're on my side."

He laughs too, because regardless of the tension and the alleged locations of certain photographs and really, really flimsy justifications, that's not - ever - going to change.

"Damn straight," he says.

-end!-


End file.
